In PLM systems, developmental programs are often operated from massive spreadsheets utilizing hundreds of columns, and even possibly thousands of rows. In such developmental programs, millions of data pieces are shared between cross-functional global users in a number of different locations. Traditionally, these programs utilized either a spreadsheet as mentioned above, or an engineering product data management (PDM) application in order to attempt to keep track and organize the large amounts of data pieces associated with such a program. However, utilizing these solutions independently results in a high cost of manual data entry, high product complexity, and potential user confusion. Furthermore, the manual BOM items/structure reconciliation caused accuracy errors, and utilizing either a PDM or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) application, which are currently both present systems in most user environments, caused integration issues. Resultingly, utilization of either a spreadsheet or a PDM required that a full-time employee was needed just to maintain the system.
As discussed previously, spreadsheets have been used in an attempt to manage disparate data within such PLM systems, with little success. Such projects included too much information, and too many columns and rows to efficiently manage and keep track of all of the parts involved with such a project. The number of individuals in many locations accessing the spreadsheet to keep the information in the spreadsheet up to date caused a high incidence of accidental deletions or modifications of information.
Other previously attempted solutions included utilizing a PDM application to manage attributes of such a PLM project in tabbed form having security by specific production group. This solution included a pilot server and a typical PDM application to organize engineering product data for a user. This solution was not suitable for such a PLM project, as such PDM applications fail to produce useful reports from the information collected, and were overwhelmed by the amount of attribute information required by a typical PLM project, causing failure of the pilot server.